Independence Day Message by Sri Aurobindo

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Independence Day Message by Sri Aurobindo

 

Sri Aurobindo was requested by the All India Radio, Thiruchirapalli (former

Trichinopoly ), to give a message for India's independence. This is the message

which was broadcast from the All India Radio on the 14th of August 1947. It is

of special relevance and importance even now.

 

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August 15th, 1947 is the birthday of free India. It marks for her the end of an

old era, the beginning of a new age. But we can also make it by our life and

acts as a free nation an important date in a new age opening for the whole

world, for the political, social, cultural and spiritual future of humanity.

 

August 15th is my own birthday and it is naturally gratifying to me that it

should have assumed this vast significance. I take this coincidence, not as a

fortuitous accident, but as the sanction and seal of the Divine Force that

guides my steps on the work with which I began life, the beginning of its full

fruition. Indeed, on this day I can watch almost all the world-movements which I

hoped to see fulfilled in my lifetime, though then they looked like

impracticable dreams, arriving at fruition or on their way to achievement. In

all these movements free India may well play a large part and take a leading

position.

 

The first of these dreams was a revolutionary movement which would create a free

and united India. India today is free but she has not achieved unity. At one

moment it almost seemed as if in the very act of liberation she would fall back

into the chaos of separate States which preceded the British conquest. But

fortunately it now seems probable that this danger will be averted and a large

and powerful, though not yet a complete union will be established. Also, the

wisely drastic policy of the Constituent Assembly has made it probable that the

problem of the depressed classes will be solved without schism or fissure. But

the old communal division into Hindus and Muslims seems now to have hardened

into a permanent political division of the country. It is to be hoped that this

settled fact will not be accepted as settled for ever or as anything more than a

temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even

crippled: civil strife may remain always possible, possible even a new invasion

and foreign conquest, her position among the nations weakened, her destiny

impaired or even frustrated.

 

This must not be; the partition must go. Let us hope that that may come about

naturally, by an increasing recognition of the necessity not only of peace and

concord but of common action, by the practice of common action and the creation

of means for that purpose. In this way unity may finally come about under

whatever form - the exact form may have a pragmatic but not a fundamental

importance. But by whatever means, in whatever way, the division must go; unity

must and will be achieved, for it is necessary for the greatness of India's

future.

 

Another dream was for the resurgence and liberation of the peoples of Asia and

her return to her great role in the progress of human civilisation. Asia has

arisen; large parts are now quite free or are at this moment being liberated:

its other still subject or partly subject parts are moving through whatever

struggled towards freedom. Only a little has to be done and that will be done

today or tomorrow. There India has her part to play and has begun to play it

with an energy and ability which already indicate the measure of her

possibilities and the place she can take in the council of the nations.

 

The third dream was a world-union forming the outer basis of a fairer, brighter

and nobler life for all mankind. That unification of the human world is under

way; there is an imperfect initiation organised by struggling against tremendous

difficulties. But the momentum is there and it must inevitably increase and

conquer. Here too India has begun to play a prominent part and, if she can

develop that larger statesmanship which is not limited by the present facts and

immediate possibilities but looks into the future and brings it nearer, her

presence may make all the difference between a slow and timid and a bold and

swift development. A catastrophe may intervene and interrupt or destroy what is

being done, but even then the final result is sure. For unification is a

necessity of Nature, an inevitable movement. Its necessity for the nations is

also clear, for without it the freedom of the small nations may be at any moment

in peril and the life even of the large and powerful nations insecure. The

unification is therefore to the interests of all, and only human imbecility and

stupid selfishness can prevent it; but these cannot stand for ever against the

necessity of Nature and the Divine Will. But an outward basis is not enough;

there must grow up an international spirit and outlook, international forms and

institutions must appear, perhaps such developments, as dual or multilateral

citizenship, willed interchange or voluntary fusion of cultures. Nationalism

will have fulfilled itself and lost it militancy and would no longer find these

things incompatible with self-preservation and the integrality of its outlook. A

new spirit of oneness will take hold of the human race.

 

Another dream, the spiritual gift of India to the world has already begun.

India's spirituality is entering Europe and America in an ever increasing

measure. That movement will grow; amid the disasters of the time more and more

eyes are turning towards her with hope and there is even an increasing resort

not only to her teachings, but to her psychic and spiritual practice.

 

The final dream was a step in evolution which would raise man to a higher and

larger consciousness and begin the solution of the problems which have perplexed

and vexed him since he first began to think and to dream of individual

perfection and a perfect society. This is still a personal hope and an idea, an

ideal which has begun to take hold both in India and in the West on

forward-looking minds, The difficulties in the way are more formidable than in

any other field of endeavour, but difficulties were made to be overcome and if

the Supreme Will is there, they will be overcome. Here too, if this evolution is

to take place, since it must proceed through a growth of the spirit and the

inner consciousness, the initiative can come from India and, although the scope

must be universal, the central movement may be hers.

 

Such is the content which I put into this date of India's liberation; whether or

how far this hope will be justified depends upon the new and free India.

 

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Chirag Shah

Administrator

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